Let me tell you a story. There was a stretch in my direct sales business where my leadership team was drowning. The business was growing, and we had thousands of people in the organization by then. Every one of them had a question. And every question was walking up the chain to the same handful of leaders.
And I want you to hear what kind of questions they were, because they weren’t hard. Where do I find the form? How do I set up the tool? What do I say when a customer asks me this? They were basic things that were already answered in the training. A person could have found the answer in five minutes if they had looked.
But looking takes five minutes and asking takes thirty seconds. So they asked, and my leaders answered. Because that’s what a good leader does, right? You help your people.
My leaders had stopped leading
My leaders were spending their whole day answering questions that didn’t need them. And the things that did need them weren’t getting touched. Nobody was having the hard conversations. Nobody was getting to the people who were about to quit. My best people were stuck in the shallow end.
And I had to own my part in it, because we had trained that. Every time a leader answered a question somebody could have answered themselves, they taught that person to ask next time instead of look. We built an organization of problem bringers, one helpful answer at a time.
What it feels like from the leader’s chair
I know what this feels like, because I lived it. There were seasons in my business where I would go on vacation and spend the whole time putting out fires. I lived with a little bit of fear, because I believed that if I didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done.
That is what it feels like to run a team on your presence. And it’s exhausting.
So why does it keep happening? Look at the moment itself. Somebody walks up with a problem they could have solved. The leader knows the answer and has eleven other things going on. Answering takes four seconds, and it sends the person away happy. Holding the answer back takes two minutes, and it feels like being difficult. So the leader answers. And the leader is going to do it six more times before lunch.
Every one of those is a rep. And every rep trains the team to bring the next problem to the same desk.
We built an organization of problem bringers, one helpful answer at a time.
A number that tells you the truth
If you want to know how deep this runs in your company, I’ll give you one number to count. At the end of this week, count the decisions you made that weren’t yours to make.
The first week, that number is going to be uncomfortable. And that’s a good thing, because now you can see it.
Then try one question the next time somebody brings you a problem they could have solved. Ask them, “If no one was coming to help, what would you do?” And then wait for the answer.
Refusing to answer is different from refusing to help
When I fixed this in my own organization, I trained it on both sides. I trained the team on what to do before they brought a problem up the chain. And I trained the leaders on what to do when a problem showed up anyway.
And the leaders’ side mattered most, because the whole thing dies if the leader keeps handing out answers.
But I also made sure nobody walked away feeling like their leader didn’t care. The leader would say, “Go own that and go look. And if you still can’t find it, I’ve got you.” We were serving our people by making sure they could find their own answers. One day they would have a team of their own, and they wouldn’t want thirty people lined up at their door either.
That is what freedom looks like for a leader. You have problem solvers around you, and the business keeps moving when you step away.
Inside Lead Elite Academy, your leaders learn that system, and they run it on themselves first.
